This Morning

The sky is gray this morning, after 24 hours of rain that brought over 5.5 inches down from the sky.  The air is full of energy, leaves are dancing.  It's cool, and feels much more like autumn than the middle of summer.

I held onto the tip of a slender branch and felt the pull of the wind as it blew against the leaves, trying to lift the branch up and away from me like a sail filling with air.  The uniform grayness of the sky masked movement in the clouds, until the shifting winds created a thinner layer of cloud and the brightness of the Sun began to glow.  It soon faded, behind thickening grayness.  

A soaring vulture burst into the sky between treetops, riding with the speedy wind, then circling back into the flow and appearing to pause before speeding off downwind. Songbirds flitted from tree to tree, and a squirrel scampered along an oak branch high overhead.

There's so much happening, wonderful things to see and feel, that last just a moment and then they're gone.  Nature is profligate with its riches, and has no attachment to them.  They appear, then they're gone, and then more appear, never the same, always changing.  The ones I see are the only ones I know.  There must be countless more that I miss because my senses and attention are limited.

The only thing I can be sure of is that I cannot predict what may appear, or when.  I can only be present, open to whatever occurs, ready to be surprised and amazed.

Storm Yoga!

The purpose of practice is to cultivate the ability to participate fully in Life.  Mind, body, and breath, the movement of Life itself, are brought together in a unified experience.  You feel the energy of Life flowing in you.  You become intimate with Life.

I was well into the flow of my practice today when the light coming in the windows quickly faded.  I heard the sound of wind in the trees and saw leaves and branches begin to move in the energy of the arriving storm.  The power of the storm called to me.

I paused my practice and went out to stand on the front steps as wind swirled through the treetops and brought a flurry of poplar leaves around me.  Thunder sounded, and a spatter of cool raindrops struck my face and arms.  As the front passed, the wind abated and the rain increased.  I went back inside to continue my practice on the mat, participating in Life as body and breath moved, immersed in the sound of life-giving water flowing down over the plants to the Earth.  

Mark Whitwell says that personal practice should be regular and non-obsessive.  It should help you find intimacy and freedom, not become yet another obsession or attachment.

Today, a few minutes standing out in the energy of the storm, from the same source of energy that flows within me as Life, became a meaningful, special addition to my daily practice.  A gift to me from Nature.

The Leap!

It's a beautiful morning.  The Sun is up in the clear summer sky, angling in over my left shoulder as I walk to the yoga studio.  The energy of life is all around.  The plants are green with full growth, now busy gathering the Sun's energy they need for the year.  Bees, wasps and flies are pollinating flowers, and birds forage and call all around.  The squirrel runs along the utility wire toward me, approaching a moderate sized tree that reaches its branches up towards the wire, but stopping short.  As the squirrel nears the tree it slows, pausing ever so briefly, and then launches into the air, legs and tail spread, arcing in the pull of gravity out and down into the tiny leafy branchlets, where it gains purchase and scrambles into the branches.  The leap, so fearless and natural, a joyous burst of energy, a moment of surrender into the sky by a creature with no doubt of its abilities and with innate knowledge of the world and how it works.

Another sunlit morning, and a female cardinal flies to a branch, sitting and grooming for a bit, feathers fluffed out, revealing a grayish blue undertone beneath the reddish brown outer feathers.  It draws in, exuding alert energy, and then hops up and out, floating briefly in the air before extending wings for a few skillful strokes to glide into another perch.  So free, so confident, so full of grace.

These creatures simply do what they are naturally able to do.  They move, playing with gravity without analysis, without doubt about their abilities, with apparent effortlessness.  I can do that too.  Not by thinking, or learning more, but by trusting myself and what I innately know about the world.  Making the leap, without a doubt.